Pro-Cruz super PAC ad attacks Iowa governor

DES MOINES, Iowa — A super PAC backing Ted Cruz is attacking Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad in a new radio ad in response to the longtime Republican’s governor declaration last week that Cruz should be defeated in the caucuses.

The new ad, part of a $40,000 statewide buy by the Courageous Conservatives PAC, lumps together Branstad and Donald Trump, Cruz’s chief competition in the state, as stooges of the powerful ethanol industry.

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“America wants a leader who walks tall and stands up against the lobbyist thugs and the politicians they own. Branstad and Trump. Branstad values; Trump values. Cruz can’t be bought and they hate him for it,” says the narrator in the ad.

Branstad said last week that Cruz’s opposition to a renewable fuels standard “could be very damaging” for ethanol and thus the state. Trump has backed the fuels standard. Asked if he’d like the Texas senator to lose, Governor Branstad said, "Yes."

Rick Shaftan, a spokesman for Courageous Conservatives PAC, told POLITICO the ad would begin playing on 105 Iowa radio stations on Monday. “The governor’s taken on Cruz so we’ve got to fight back,” Shaftan said. “Sometimes you’ve got to fight back or this bully is going to say ‘Oh, Ted Cruz has to be stopped’ and that’s it.”

Shaftan dismissed the possibility of backlash from attacking Branstad, who is the longest serving governor in American history and won reelection handily in 2014. “Terry Branstad is just assuming that because he’s won a bunch of elections, that he can dictate the Republican caucus, that he’s some political boss,” he said.

The ad credits Cruz for his opposition to energy subsidies and willingness to say so in Iowa, even if unpopular for those in the ethanol industry. “Ted Cruz opposes all energy subsidies, including oil subsidies, just like any conservative should. And Cruz had the guts to say it in Iowa,” the ad’s narrator says. “That terrified Governor Branstad and the ethanol lobby. They got Trump to promote bigger ethanol subsidies and then announced that Cruz must be stopped at all costs.”

The ad comes exactly one week before the February 1 caucuses.

“For some, this election is about keeping power and getting more,” the narrator says toward the end of the ad. “For the rest of us, it’s about taking our country back, now, before it’s too late.”